Constructive critics
Jonathan Heawood - Director of the writers' charity English PEN
Why should we care about the free press? As a character says in Tom Stoppard's play Night and Day, "no matter how imperfect things are, if you've got a free press everything is correctable, and without it everything is concealable." Around the world, we have seen what happens when abuses of power cannot be challenged in the media. Syria, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and Bahrain were among the lowest ranked countries in the 2010 World Press Freedom Index.
However, as another character says in Stoppard's play, "I'm with you on the free press. It's the newspapers I can't stand." It's a common view in the UK, where, according to YouGov, only 10% of us trust tabloid journalists to tell the truth. In English PEN's campaign for libel reform we have met MPs and policy-makers who believe that English libel laws (so restrictive that they have been damned by the UN Human Rights Committee) are necessary to protect us from a press that is otherwise out of control.
This places the PCC in a difficult position. It can't support the (much-loved) principle of the free press without sometimes supporting the (much-loathed) newspapers. In this light the PCC has made some good but controversial decisions, refusing to uphold a complaint against the Daily Mail for comments on the death of Stephen Gately, or against the Daily Mail and the Independent on Sunday by Sarah Baskerville, the civil servant whose use of Twitter was publicised by the press.
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and our own Supreme Court also balance free speech against other rights and interests. They are not seen as stooges of the media because they are not funded or overseen by representatives of the media. And so the real challenge for the PCC is not the nature of its adjudications but the nature of its funding and governance.
These remarks are good at highlighting the challenges that face the PCC, which perhaps come down to questions about how it should defi ne its role as it continues to develop as an organisation. Put another way: how should the PCC be an active agent in raising standards in the industry, while still preserving freedom of expression? We seek to answer these questions elsewhere in this document: by providing an efficient and accessible complaints service; by reaching out to those who need us; by offering help pre-publication; by training working journalists and students; and offering an overall lead to the industry in ethical issues. There is much work to do here, and we must ensure we always listen to those who raise challenges, so that we can make sure we are meeting them.
‒ Press Complaints Commission